The baroness

A pro/em by Inuya Shultz

1. They bought you off the side of some road in Northern Quebec. You were an inbred impulse.

2. When I met you, I thought that your crushed velvet face was hard to look at, like a broken arm, or a car crash. I thought that it was an unkind thing my father and his girlfriend had done, bringing you here. Here, where the bathroom door was a red theatre curtain, here where the water was bitter, and the floors put splinters in our feet.

3. They named you The Baroness and cared as deeply as they cared briefly. You had a labored breathing pattern that kept us awake at night. The year you were with us, was the year I wasted away in front of the television, was the year everything was slippery from your slobber and period. They didn’t fix you, so you leaked across the 4 ½ as you roamed in search of attention. Then, you’d stand still and dumb, oozing a glutinous puddle around yourself. I’d glare at you with a too-much-t.v.-headache until my pettiness waned and was replaced with acrid pity.

4. We were never close, but you liked to depress and watch cartoons with me on a couch that made my clothes smell like sweat. Your black coat was bright with dandruff stars, and I related to your strained sighs. I think I even apologized, for the dullness of this life. I wished that I was ten because I had it in my head that when I turned ten, I would know how to help myself, and then I could help you. I asked you if dogs could yearn, but never got an answer. You scratched yourself a lot, that last month. I think you had an infection from some urine that was trapped in your folds.

5. She was born in a cage, my father said to me when I asked where you were. I noticed your collar on the kitchen table after school. She deserves to know freedom, just like you and me, kiddo. They brought her to a friend’s farm up North. It’s every dog’s dream, my father said. This is no place for a dog. He gestured to this black eye of an apartment, cracked window panes, bubbling paint, tiles outlined with mold, sore from infection and neglect. He gestured to the beaten unkemptness of a life he realized was no good for a dog, but I guess good enough for me. I almost asked if they could take me up North too.